I dedicate this post to some of my best friends from the north of our country,who truly love and respect the south as much as they love their own land.
This one is for you Pinkster, Tara, Nimi, Kanika, Saku and Pragu!
So, dear old AT is indulging in his quotidian, free caffeine at the office cafeteria (All alone of course!) and a Chomu (Chapatti oriented masses) comes up to him, points at the chair next to AT and asks him in hindi...”Kya yaha pe koi aa raha hai”?(Anyone coming here?). Poor Chomu had no clue about ATs antisocial status.
Anyways what follows is even funnier, AT looks up and replies, ”Aarum verinilla, kasara editho”!(In eloquent Malayalam….No one is coming,(Like duh!)you can take the chair”!
Chomu is shocked by the strange language thrown at him and immediately switches over to English, and AT, having proved his point, obliges politely.
Anyways, that set me thinking….why Hindi?
I don’t know what speaking Hindi with a south Indian accent is, but I believe I do a good job at it.
After years of wrestling with the language through school..I feel put to test even now!
All credit to Bollywood! Far from mastering the language, I can just about manage haggling with the auto drivers and shopkeepers
A lot of people live under the misconception that Hindi is our national language, hello ignoramus…it is our official language and one of the 22 scheduled languages of the country.
When there is clearly an invisible division between the north and south of India isn’t it unfair to assume that everyone knows Hindi.
Thank god for globalization and the IT boom, South India is actually on the world map and to the rest of the country we are more than just “Madrasis” down south! To their disbelief they discovered that the very same lot of Madrasis comprise of Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu, Konkani, Kannada, Coorgi, Tulu, Badga and Toda speaking masses with a multitude of dialects to boot!
Its 2008 and yet, we have to endear comments about our not so colored skin, not so oily hair and not so funny name!
Although ignorance is bliss, someday may all these misconceptions be dispelled….
May you appreciate the idli, appam, bisi belle bath and andhra meals as much as you relish your chaat and roti,
May you appreciate the safety of our territory and the hospitality of our people,
May you realize that we are more literate yet less arrogant,
All the world needs is more mutual respect!
Ironically, there never was a united India until Britain made it so. We were a nation of warring states held together by the British Raj and today they left behind a language that in some sense unites us as a nation
A funny thought occurred to me though….what if Hitler had conquered Britain in 1940?? :)
4 comments:
whaddya know! i get to star in one of your ramblings!!
but seriously, don't you simply love it when some of these CHOMs go around insisting that you simply aren't hindustani if you can't speak hindi (despite the fact that you, unlike her, can actually speak at least 3 of the other national languages and english, the other official language)
pip-pip </AT>
a wonderful piece of musing. am a tamilian who is still bewildered when people look at me as if i just peed inside the sanctum sanctorum of a temple when they realise that am not fluent in hindi. gr8 job.
Tell me about it!
I am a lucky at this...People always take me to a North Indian before blurt out crisp Kannada or respond in any some South Indian Language- and I see them stunned! But, I sure have seen friends who have faced this :) Good one!
Post a Comment